He was president or vice president of the three largest sheep companies in the Rawlins region - Pioneer, Cow Creek and Yellowstone. (Yellowstone was out of the Lander, Wyoming area.) In 1931, he was elected to the Board of Directors of the First National Bank in Rawlins where he eventually became the vice president and director. He was also the director of Ferguson Mercantile in that same community. He was a member of the Wyoming Wool Growers Association and the Wyoming Stock Growers Association. In addition, he was a member of the fraternal order of Elks.
John Kelly Hartt was a hard working man. I asked my Aunt Marge one time what made my granddad such a successful pioneer. Her response was simply that "he had a dream and he stood by it." Perhaps very telling of his persistence is that when John Kelly Hartt died at age 81 of a heart attack, he was at his summer headquarters. "Still working, I bet" I thought to myself when I found this newspaper article about his death. The ambulance was taking him from the "summer headquarters" at Hahn's Peak all the way to Rawlins when he died in route in Baggs, Wyoming. Somehow this seems like a very fitting end to the life of a man who came west with few assets and who died one of the most successful ranchers of that era. He was indeed a pioneer with a vision. ~ Cathy Hartt
